Fletcher Hanks

Fletcher Hanks (December 1, 1889 – January 22, 1976) was an American cartoonist whose brief but singular output during the Golden Age of Comic Books has earned him a cult following. Born in the American South, Hanks worked under several pseudonyms—including Hank Christy, Charles Netcher, C. C. Starr, and Barclay Flagg—and was active in comics from 1939 to 1941. He is best known for creating bizarre, all-powerful supernatural heroes like Stardust the Super Wizard and Fantomah, whose adventures were marked by elaborate, often cruel punishments meted out to criminals and wrongdoers. Hanks wrote, drew, lettered, and inked his own stories, giving them a raw, idiosyncratic visual style that was both crude and strangely compelling. His work appeared in titles such as *Fantastic Comics*, *Fight Comics*, *Jungle Comics*, *Daring Mystery Comics*, and *Crack*. After 1941, he left the industry and lived quietly until his death in 1976. For decades, Hanks was largely forgotten, but a resurgence of interest in outsider and underground art led to posthumous reprints and critical reassessment. His work has been collected in volumes like *I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!* and *The Complete Fantomah*, cementing his legacy as one of the most distinctive and unsettling voices of early comics.